You speak like a Human who never had the pleasure of meeting Cyclonus or Whirl. I can say from personal experience, as Cyclonus’ shipmate, his bartender, and his roommate’s best friend, that Cyclonus worries me a great deal, despite never having been a Decepticon. Ever. He makes a point of emphasizes that a lot, which is impressive for a ‘Bot who believes excessive speech is blasphemous. (He gets along just great with me, thanks for asking. I attribute it to Tailgate, who’s always telling Cyclonus how great I am.)

And then there’s Whirl. That ‘Bot has seriously crossed wires in his head. Probably a result of undergoing Empurata and all that. I’m totally sympathetic to the fact that Whirl suffered greatly, but a) that was millions of stellar cycles ago, and b) why does he have to take it out on my bar! I heard he was even kicked out of the Wreckers for some unfathomable crime, and I can fathom quite a few crimes that Whirl’s committed.

I guess my point is that for all that we Autobots like to brag about how heroic we are compared to the “Evil Decepticons”, we had more than our fair share of lunatics and war criminals. Like Tyrest. Or Whirl. Or Flame. Or Whirl. Or Impactor. Or Whirl. I think you can see where I’m going with this.

So maybe Amber needs to stop looking at the universe in a binary fashion. Cyclonus wasn’t a ‘Con, but everyone assumes he was because some Humans shot their mouths off. He’s just a very devout, very patriotic soldier, who likes to sing. A lot. In the Primal Vernacular, which sounds like a turbofox being fed into a smelting pool. And Whirl is still an Autobot, but his behavior before, during and after the war was and is horrifying (and remember, I’m the closest thing Whirl has to a friend, now that none of the Wreckers will speak to him!). And scuttlebutt around “The Lost Light” says that Megatron himself has become an Autobot (and will bej oining the crew of “The Lost Light”!). If Megatron could pull a 180, learn the Autobot Code and become a better robot, then there’s definitely hope for Amber. I mean, hey, all she’s done is stab a girl through the hand, resist arrest, commit breaking and entering, vandalism, and assault and battery! Whirl would call that a good start to his day!

One of my favorite lines from the late ’90s Nightwing comic is when Nightwing and Robin (Tim Drake) are talking about Batman retiring someday:
Robin: “Retire? And what, be Bruce Wayne all day? He doesn’t even LIKE Bruce Wayne.”

Bruce: Second, the voice kept calling me “Bruce.” In my mind, that’s not what I call myself.
Terry: What do you call yourself?
[beat]
Terry: Oh, yeah. I suppose you would. But that’s my name now.
Bruce: Tell that to my subconscious.

That’s only because Bruce is lazy/Batman’s a selfish-ass. Bruce is sitting on a giant pile of money. If Batman stayed as Bruce all the time he could actually run his company and contribute to philanthropic projects. Plus there wouldn’t be Batman anymore, and you know what that means: Superman can come back into Gotham.

We got the same problem in my neighborhood! Except now we got an anti-art villain who runs around tackles the graffiti artists and then uses their spray paint to draw on their bodies. This guy or gal also shoves a soap bar in their mouths which the cops assume he or she does it because the graffiti artist is cursing during the attack.

Yeah, I get that she doesn’t want to go and start stabbing people without cause. That is never good. But is she trying to warn Ethan that “the girl” (since let’s face it Amber never learned Sal’s name, so let’s call Sal “the girl”, cool?) is a student on campus and that he should be careful of “the girl”, or is Amber trying to warn Ethan that she’s terrified she’ll resort to violence against “the girl” and wants Ethan to help her avoid that. Y’know how Bruce Banner had Rick Jones lock him up back in the old days when he turned into the Hulk when the sun set? (Yes, that was a thing, look it up!) Maybe, in her subconscious Amber wants Ethan to get her help, or to even go tell the school administration about what she’s doing. Y’know, like how Rick Jones blabbed about Bruce Banner being the Hulk to Major Glenn Talbott? Man, why would anyone take that kid on as a sidekick? Okay Captain Mar-Vell and Genis Vell didn’t have a choice, but Rom? Rom could have done much better. Rom should have gotten Kitty Pryde for a sidekick. Imagine the stories: the Galadorian Space Knight and the Ashkenazi Kuniochi! They could battle Dire Wraiths and the Red Skull! That should have been a thing.

Amber is more messed up then we had realized. Now I want more in depth arcs for characters all around. For that matter, why is Roz still a slut? why wouldn’t she want to outshine her sister, rather than try to tarnish the family name?

Can we not act like there’s a good reason to use that word at all? Maybe you would call Joe a slut, but most of the time people don’t apply that word to guys. Regardless, even if you would call both Roz and Joe ‘sluts’ that doesn’t erase the connotations of the word. Roz will suffer much more from being labeled a ‘slut’ than Joe. That’s kind of the nature of the word.

Aside from general misogyny, the reason you have the term slut being used and don’t see the term male-slut or some equivalent expression specific to the male gender used is that once you’ve said male, the rest is, generally speaking, redundant.

Maybe you’re thinking about it the wrong way. Robin, while in a position of political power, seems to be a bit repressed in terms of expressing her sexuality. Roz, on the other hand, has no problem with that at all, nor expresses any shame in doing so, regardless of what you and others might think of her actions.

Also, it’s less about “tarnishing the family name” and more about “not wanting to be used as a political piece to advocate a stance she clearly doesn’t support”. Roz is being her own person to spite her sister’s attempt at controlling her, while Robin is manipulating her own identity and values in order to gain votes and stay in power. I’d personally say that Roz already has outshined Robin, in her own way.

Can I upvote ninja_jesus’ comment? I want to upvote that comment.
Also Kelly’s comment. ‘Slut’ is a pejorative term that implies that enjoying sex is bad somehow, and that’s messed up. The fact that it’s more often used to describe women rather than men is also messed up. Women (and other people) should be allowed to enjoy having sex.

I think that the term “slut” should be preserved for a person who is in a monogamous relationship that is discovered to have been sexually active with other people. <_< That, to me, seems like a justified use of the word.

Because being honest with your sexual desires is a good thing, and Roz absolutely sees it that way (to a degree which borders on recklessness, in her particular case). Even if she does want to “outshine” her sister, for Roz, having lots of sex is an indispensible component of that.

Huh. This is actually the first time I’ve considered what Sal’s reaction would be if Amber confronted her. Or, you know, if she ran into Amazi-Girl while sneaking in through windows. As in, ‘Wait, you’re the crazy bongo due to whom I wear gloves all the time???’

Hey guys… remember that Robot Chicken episode with Calvin & Hobbes, and you see Calvin, like, murder other characters form the comic and get locked up, only he has retreated so far into his imaginary world that he thinks he is on Mars, and mars is awesome?

Now, I THINK I remember Willis saying that people are not going to die in this strip, so it is unlikely that Amber will kill Sal (who knows?). But do you think that she might go so far over the deep end that, when the authorities come to take her way, she somehow sees herself as a victorious, beloved super hero?

While Amber still greatly disturbs me I think it could be very beneficial to both her and Sal for the two of them to just talk. I’d like to see Sal faced with some reprecussions of what she did. Something she can’t just brush off onto parental favoritism and her brother.

I feel like there’s a bit of weird magnitude whiplash in the story now that Willis has kind of lost control of the threads and let some wander off into soap-opera territory again.

When most of the characters are worrying about frustrating but ultimately pretty inevitably-resolved and relatable identity issues (the decision to be “out” or not, balancing religion against reality), having one character’s arc be the realization that she’s an outright psychopath and that she’s gradually losing the self-control fight that keeps her from slipping into serial killer territory is a bit… much.

I’m hoping he manages to reel in/scale back Amber’s arc at some point so that we don’t end up with everything wandering off into magical realism like his other strips.

Yeah. Dissociative disorder fits Amber better than antisocial personality characteristics. The compartmentalization as a defense mechanism is classic. I’m not sure if she’s slipping further into it or struggling to come to terms with herself as an undivided self.

Yeah, um, Amber is hardly about to “slip into serial killer territory”. She’s angry and she wants to confront someone, but that’s *because of her father*, whom we know is an emotional abuser. Yeah, she’s not exactly rational right now, but she’s always been violent and vigilante – it’s just, she’s channelled all that through Amazi-Girl and fighting the good fight, and probably beating her opponents at Nintendo games. Now she’s going through some trauma, which =/= “serial killer mode”.

I have to ask: getting stabbed through the hand doesn’t count as repercussions? (Leaving aside the whole jail and convent-school-in-Tennessee-that-for-some-reason-stole-its-uniform-from-Canada side of things.)

Nope. She just slaps some gloves on and doesn’t deal with it. We’ve seen no indication she feels bad about what she did, no indication she cares she hurt other people. So far it’s been all about her and her issues and blaming other people, whether she has a point or not about her parents favoring her brother is besides the point.

I might be misunderstanding this strip or something, but I got the distinct impression that she didn’t want revenge. That she doesn’t want Sal to see her at all, ever.
If she wears the mask she won’t look like herself and since she’s in character, so to speak, she won’t be the same weak little girl that felt completely frozen and helpless like she was then. Well, up until her asshole father basically bullied her in to attacking Sal after she was unarmed, defenseless, and pretty much in custody. But I’m sure she felt helpless even then.
Anyway, I thought she was slipping in to Amazi-Girl’s persona and attempting to completely abandon her own because Amber wants to hide from Sal and to not be recognized by her. I figured she was feeling like she could either hide in her room all the time feeling alone, helpless, scared or she could slip in to being Amazi-Girl and still hide from Sal, but without those helpless, scared feelings.

Also, Amber uses the mask to keep her rage/violence/emotions in check. I think she wears the mask so that she never goes out of control like she did when she stabbed Sal, and maybe as a way to atone for it. That’s why it was so devastating for her when she beat the shit out of Blaine, and why she slipped from Amazigirl to Amber halfway through the beatdown. Amber definitely doesn’t want to fight Sal, I just hope she has the self-control not too.

You forget: Amber isn’t us, and actually LIKES Danny. She would not like stabbing Danny, and might lose her last grip on sanity. Whether she goes completely psycho or curls up into a ball is still up for debate.

It’s not often that I get to see a superhero beaten like the drum we only allow into the house because of contractual obligation, not love or even a simulacrum of an emotional connection, due to a mistake that the drum made when it was younger.

That is exactly what I needed to start my week and ensure that I don’t go out an kill my Drum if he can’t pay back the money I lent him.

For all the other possibilities, I’m really hoping we get a cathartic confrontation, rather than a violent one. Whether that starts with aggression or an apology, it could be solid either way – but it’d be a pretty satisfying way to resolve Amber’s current arc.

This is in no way motivated by my desire to see Amber and Sal as the most confusing of all possible bros.

Considering that Amber as she was then stabbed Sal in the hand, her not wanting to be then-Amber could be either a good sign or a really, really dark one, I think. Amber’s recent trajectory is not encouraging me to be positive.

Two titans shall meet in an epic battle that will cause the earth to shake and the skies to darken. The audience will be forgotten and their welfare unheeded. Their fate sealed by their proximity to the affairs of dragons-until one intercedes to stop this mighty conflagration-Danny. Will Amber recognize it as an appeal to her innate humanity, or as a betrayal and siding with Sal? Will Danny be hurt,maimed, killed in the attempt? Will Amber’s depleted sanity be destroyed utterly leaving her a mere husk of her current damaged self? Tune in next time to learn—oh…no it’ll be at least a couple of more strips ’cause Willis is a dick.